Chapter 223 Ineffective Seal

The seal that prevented Shaman from using her mana prevented the ambient mana from entering the room, making it impossible to create water, fire, air and earth. However, due to her stardust being a unique type of mana, it did not require the base 4 elements to be formed.

This allowed the use of her royal bloodline arts, which were completely unrestricted since the space attuned ambient mana was not limited within the seal.

Elanor's grandpa, who wore grey robes, stood above the vent and came to this realisation after taking a closer look at Shaman and the properties of her unique element.

'How troublesome.' It threw a spanner in his plans as he didn't have the energy to waste on fighting.

"Do what you want with my granddaughter, now get out of here." Seeing the situation going downhill, he turned to leave when suddenly a rift in space opened behind him.

"You're not getting away!" Shaman appeared from the rift with Kotetsu in hand covered in stardust. She was slightly blinded by the lights in the hallway, but it didn't matter to her as her only aim was to sow some chaos.

Slashing down, she missed the old man by a fair margin, but when her sword hit the ground it exploded in a burst of stardust. The entire hallway was covered in Shaman's stardust, giving her a strategic advantage. On top of that, now that she was out of the seal she should finally be able to use all of her elements.

Next, Shaman surrounded herself with ice spikes and shot them into the stardust. The old man saw them enter the walls, but nothing came of it, so he tried to use this opportunity to get away.

Taking a step back and hitting his cane on the ground, roots tried to break out of the floor but were stopped by the stardust. Suddenly, a barrage of ice spikes came from all around him, blocking his escape path and pushing him back towards Shaman.

Shaman lifted her sword from the ground and charged into the old man, sandwiching him between 2 lethal attacks. Her sword released its own barrage of ice spikes while Shaman took a stab at piercing the old man's heart.

"Argghh!" The sword successfully went through his chest while the ice spikes stabbed into every part of his body except the head. Blood poured out of his mouth, his wounds so severe that Shaman doubted he could survive.

Blood landed on Shaman's face, but she noticed something wasn't right with the blood. It was the same blue colour as the dark elves she fought in the dungeon.

"You're-!?" She saw the smile on the old man's face, who no longer seemed to be in pain. A wave of purple spread through his skin and his eyes glowed slightly red.

As the ice covering his body started melting, Shaman tried to pull away but the elf had already grabbed her sword in his powerful grip.

"Should have stayed in your cell vixen!" The dark elf gripped even harder and the sound of metal snapping echoed in the hallway. Shaman then took a few steps back as it felt like the elf let go of her sword.

Looking at her sword, she was speechless to see that almost the entire blade had been snapped off.

[Kotetsu (Broken)]

"Look at you, a broken sword and you're already in disarray. This isn't who I saw in the dungeon." The dark elf had finished transforming and the old wrinkled look of a tired grandpa vanished. He now had a great physique and grew a pair of horns like an oni.

The grey robes that he loosely wore fell and revealed a leg that resembled a goat.

Shaman's mind spiralled trying to think what her next move should be, but to her, there seemed to be no way out.

[Axel the Satyr]

[Tier 7 leader]

[It is a highly intelligent monster that is able to mimic the appearances of those he has killed. Specialises in black flame magic and has incredible speed due to its goat legs.]

Reading the description in front of her, she found some comfort in knowing it was just a tier 7 leader, but the fact it snapped her sword like a stick terrified her.

"Fox got your tongue? Here let me help." Axel suddenly disappeared, even faster than the wooden elf she fought not too long ago. He then appeared behind Shaman and kicked her back, sending her flying down the hallway.

"AHH!" Crashing into the wall that was made out of pure stone, she broke through to the other side and was embraced by the cool air of the outdoors. Having been shot out of the second floor, Shaman fell unconscious from the impact and was heading straight for the grassy ground below.

However, just before reaching the ground, she woke up and desperately tried to use her wind to brace the fall.

Managing to lighten the fall slightly, she still hit the ground hard and bounced across the ground until she rolled to a stop. All of her clothes were covered in dirt. Even worse, when she tried to move she felt bones poking her insides.

She tried using heal, but the damage was just too much. Her healing wouldn't suffice for a full recovery, but just enough for her to get up.

'Shit.' Shaman grabbed her broken Kotetsu and wobbled on her feet when she got up. Putting her sword in her inventory, she glanced up at the palace where she caught Axel standing over the edge of the hole she fell from.

"This mustn't be separate from the dungeon and instead the palace itself is the dungeon." Everything fell into place as seeing the grandpa be a tier 7 leader confirmed that he was the boss of this dungeon and that the palace is actually the final zone.

"Correct! Thanks to elves living for so long, I was able to play family." Axel spoke into Shaman's ear making her swing around with an arm that she quickly covered in ice.

Axel caught Shaman's ice arm and lifted her up, which was extremely painful as it felt like her arm was being ripped off.

"Ah yes the pleasure of pain, now don't be so jumpy and listen." Throwing her to the ground he took a few steps back and let Shaman stand up.

"Bastard." Even as she was Getting more furious about being toyed with, Shaman controlled herself from attacking since she had no choice but to listen.

"You go back to your love triangle and take that bastard child Elanor with you and I will let you live, but I need to get that demon sword you stole." Axel laid out conditions for Shaman which was surprising, but she couldn't help feeling there was something more to it.

"What guarantees that you won't just kill me as soon as you get that sword back." She couldn't trust a demon even though she was dating one, it just didn't sit right with her.

"Pffhaha! I can kill you and your friends right now, so don't test me." After his laugh, his aura changed, engulfing Shaman in a feeling of death.

"E-even if I accepted, I would need to get back to them first. Are you even going to let me?" Shaman saw herself as a hostage at this point and doubted Axel would let her just run back alone.

"Oh don't worry they will be here soon." Axel smiled as he looked up into the sky sensing something was coming his way.

***

<Elysia and Clara POV>

"Lovers call won't work!" Elysia was constantly trying to activate the skill, but only a system message popped up.

[Cannot reach lover, please try again later.]

Clara also tried as ever since she got together with Shaman and Elysia, she got access to the skill.

"We are almost there." Elanor was leading them through the palace hallways which were surprisingly quiet. There were a few maids around, who were all very surprised to see Elanor. Yet luckily not a single one tried to alert the guards even though they clearly recognized her.

Elanor wanted to stop and say hi as they were the same maids from when she was younger, but they needed to hurry.

"Are you sure we shouldn't have split up?" Silver figured they could cover more ground as there were no serious dangers.

"It's better if we stick with Elanor, especially if we bump into her father. He might mistake us as intruders or even be under Elanor's grandpa's influence." Kiruya didn't want anyone to get separated as Shaman disappearing was already stressful enough.

"If my guess is right, Shaman is in the dungeon and was put in an anti-mana seal." Elanor knew roughly how their dungeon worked as her dad explained what would happen to bad guys, using it to quell any worries she had as a kid.

"What kind of seal?" Kiruya picked up on this detail as there were varying degrees of seals.

" I don-."

"IT WORKED!" Elysia suddenly got the notification that lovers call worked and began to disappear on the spot. Clara also quickly activated it and joined Elysia to go help Shaman.

"I hope they are okay." Elanor felt it was very sudden, but was happy to know it worked as it told them Shaman was 100% alive.

"Great, let's be quick and try to find your brother then." Kiruya wanted to join them, but there was no way to tell where they vanished to.

"Mhm, I think it's better we find my dad first though, he will be able to find Ren quicker than I can navigate this place as if I'm honest…. I'm kind of lost."